


The Usual Mistakes

by Waldo



Series: A Series of Mistakes [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkwardness, First Time, Frottage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-19
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-31 10:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re going to make all the usual mistakes couples make when they’re working out a new relationship, but it’ll be okay,” John told him, lightly kissing Sherlock’s forehead.</p><p>“I wouldn’t know what constitutes ‘usual’ in this case,” Sherlock muttered.</p><p> </p><p>Sherlock and John go to bed together for the first time.  It's... a little awkward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Usual Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Обычные ошибки](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12384828) by [gerenuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gerenuk/pseuds/gerenuk)



**  
****Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom.  ~Phyllis Theroux**

 

John spent ten minutes puttering downstairs. He put the day’s newspapers in the recycling, checked his email (and Sherlock’s for that matter) to make sure there wasn’t a case waiting.  He grabbed a clean Erlenmeyer flask out of all the chemistry kit that seemed to live on the kitchen table and dumped his pocket change in it, putting it on top of the microwave.  He programmed the kettle to turn on in the morning.

Sherlock might think he was ready for sex the minute he’d decided to do it, but John knew that now that he was faced with the actual ramifications of his decision, he’d need a few more minutes to really wrap his brain around it all.

And a few minutes to build anticipation wouldn’t be a bad thing for either of them.

Not that he needed much… encouragement.

When he finally came up the stairs he tried very hard to look like this wasn’t monumental for him.  It wasn’t like it was _his_ first time, with a bloke or otherwise.  But there was something significant, something special, about being anyone’s first time that was magnified a few dozen times about being _Sherlock’s_ first time.

He bit his lip to keep from smiling at what he saw when he got to his bedroom door.  The clothes Sherlock had been wearing were folded meticulously and set on top of his dresser.  The dressing gown Sherlock perpetually wore around the house was neatly folded over the back of the chair in the corner. Sherlock had untucked John’s military-neat bed before he crawled in and tried to scrunch himself up in the corner by the wall; the sheet, the blanket and the duvet pulled up to his ears. John’s only pillow squashed against the wall behind Sherlock’s shoulders.  The light was off.

John flipped on the light, telegraphing his movement so that Sherlock would have a chance to close his eyes and avoid being blinded.  He came in and sat on the edge of the bed.  “If you’ve changed your mind –“

“I haven’t.” Sherlock told him quickly.

“You might look a little less like you’re about to undergo some horrid medical procedure,” John told him, reaching out to lay a hand on Sherlock’s arm through the covers.

Sherlock sighed, but John could detect just a slight lessening of the tension in the arm under his.  “I dislike not knowing what to expect.”

John stretched out next to him, leaving the covers and his clothing between them.  “Sometimes that can be part of the fun,” he said, reaching up to finally give in to a year-long desire denied and ran his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.  It felt good and Sherlock closed his eyes and leaned into the caress, so he did it again.

“So I’ve heard… on tawdry television programs.”  Sherlock didn’t open his eyes again; he let John keep his hand on the side of his face.

“They don’t get it all wrong, every time,” John told him quietly as he leaned in closer, making it very clear what his intentions were when he let his nose gently bump against Sherlock’s.

Sherlock’s eyes stayed resolutely closed, but his lips parted, so John took it as invitation and moved in to kiss him, really properly kiss him.

John’s hand tangled in Sherlock’s hair, gently tugging and holding Sherlock in place as they kissed.  John smiled into it as Sherlock wiggled one hand out of the covers and gripped the hem of John’s jumper.

When the kiss broke, John leaned back just far enough that he could focus on Sherlock’s face.  “I should probably get these clothes out of the way.”

Sherlock looked baffled for a second.  “Right.  Um… Am I supposed to-“

John kissed him on the nose.  “I’ve got it.”  He stood up and quickly pulled off his jumper and denims.  Socks, shirt and pants followed.  He didn’t make a show of it; Sherlock, who had given Irene Adler more than just a cursory glance, was now clearly having a hard time deciding where to look.  He’d also pulled his arm back under the top sheet and had the covers pulled up to his chin again.

John took pity on him and flipped off the light before coming back to bed.  He wasn’t entirely sure what Sherlock’s body-image issues were, but given that even in the summer he preferred to wear light-weight long-sleeve shirts with a jacket of some sort, sleeves down to his wrists and that even in the house he wore a dressing gown over his pajamas, John was sure there was something they’d have to talk about at some point.

Tonight wasn’t that time.

The light from the hall and the streetlamps outside the window would be more than enough light for anything John could imagine Sherlock feeling comfortable with that evening.

“I’d say budge over, but I think that would make you part of the wall,” John said as he pulled back the corner of the blankets and slid between them, careful to keep his contact with Sherlock at a minimum for the moment.  Sherlock looked a little baffled by that comment, so John held out an arm.  “Come here, Sherlock.  You act like you’re afraid you’ll actually touch me.  Let me just say, that I’m actually kind of hoping you will.”  John wanted to be a little more gentle, a little more tender, but he knew that if he did he ran a much higher risk of Sherlock throwing in the towel than if he treated this slightly more like some kind of science experiment than (he hoped) it really was.

“Oh, of course,” Sherlock said, shifting a little as if he wasn’t quite sure what John meant.

John bit his lip and very deliberately did not roll his eyes.  “Seriously Sherlock, it’s not a big deal, come here,” John scooted so that their legs brushed against each other and he could get one arm around Sherlock’s ribs.  “Much better.”  Sherlock was still a little stiff in the wrong places and not quite yet stiff enough in the right.

John gently trailed his fingertips over Sherlock’s spine, feeling the way Sherlock unconsciously arched into the touch.  As Sherlock became lost in the touch, John inched their bodies closer and closer until they were touching from sternum to toes.

Sherlock’s breathing came more quickly against John’s shoulder when his half-hard cock brushed against John’s thigh.  Sherlock tried pull his hips back, but John flattened his hand against Sherlock’s arse and pulled him back in.  There was another brief tensing of his muscles before Sherlock relaxed more fully against him.  John could almost see him thinking, “of course, that’s sort of the point.”

About that same time, Sherlock’s hand came up and rested on John’s shoulder.  When Sherlock noticed the change in texture between the skin under his fingers, which were curled into the hollow at John’s clavicle, and his palm, which had somehow landed right over John’s scars, John sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he’d need to let Sherlock satisfy his curiosity before they’d be able to satisfy much else.

Sherlock shifted so that he could see in the dim light, pushing the covers down when they got in the way.  His fingertips gently explored the edges of the nearly three-inch irregular circle of scar tissue.  John prepared himself for a thousand questions about what caliber of weapon he’d been shot with and why there were clearly two sets of surgical scars (the second from when they realized they’d reset the top rib and clavicle wrong in the initial field surgery).

“Does it hurt?”

That was probably the last question John expected from Sherlock, even now.  “The scars?  No.  There’s a bit of skin there that’s actually pretty numb, the nerves were pretty well wiped out right where the bullet went in.” 

The scrutiny from someone other than his doctors (and not even that in a while) made John feel a bit awkward.  Most of the women he’d dated since coming home had generally not wanted to talk about his injuries and most had actively avoided even touching the scars.

Sherlock’s fingers were tracing the ridges and scores of the rough tissue now.  “But your shoulder, your arm, they sometimes still bother you,” he said confidently.

“Sure, sometimes.  But I’m fine right now,” John assured him, using the other hand to gently brush through Sherlock’s curls.

John almost came right there and then when Sherlock leaned in and very, very gently kissed the knotted and mangled flesh.  “Oh god, Sherlock!”

Sherlock did it again and then looked up at John, his expression equal parts curiosity as to why John had such a strong reaction to him touching skin that John had just admitted had little sensation, and pure lust that said, he had a pretty damn good idea why John had reacted like that.

John blew out a breath and when it seemed to help calm him down he did it again.  “Christ, I don’t think anyone’s done that before.”

Sherlock suddenly became self-conscious and wiggled to tuck himself in against John’s shoulder, hiding his face.

“That wasn’t a complaint.  Not by far.”  He waited until Sherlock peeked up at him again.  John reached down to tip his chin up a little more and kissed him.  “I think everyone wants to know that their partner accepts even their… most obvious imperfections.”  He left unsaid that, even with that, he’d prefer Sherlock not go poking at the smaller, less obvious scar on his leg just yet.

Apparently that was enough to spur Sherlock’s confidence.  Sherlock rolled up so that most of his upper body weight was on his arms, which were now on either side of John’s shoulders.  John shifted onto his back so that Sherlock could lay himself on top of John completely.  When Sherlock had managed to settle so that their hipbones weren't bruising each other and there weren’t knees in awkward places, John brought him in for another long kiss.  Sherlock was long and hard against John’s thigh now.

“Tell me what you want,” John whispered.

Even in the very faint light, John could see Sherlock’s face color a bit.  “John, I meant when I said I had no… practical experience with… this.”  Sherlock clearly wanted to wave his hands around in frustration as he spoke, but wasn’t sure he should put his entire weight on John.

John ran his hands up and down Sherlock’s biceps.  “You don’t need practical experience to have seen something and decided _this_ looks like it would be fun, but _that_ looks pretty terrifying.”

“I haven’t decided quite yet that it’s not all pretty terrifying,” Sherlock said, bouncing back to skittish and nervous.  John felt a little like he was watching an intense game of emotional tennis.

John trailed his fingers lightly up from as far down towards Sherlock’s knee as he could reach, up over his hip.  Careful not to tickle, he added a little more pressure as he went over his ribs and then across Sherlock’s back to bring him down completely, Sherlock’s head on John’s good shoulder.  “I will never be angry if you decide this isn’t what you want right now.”  He gave it a second to let that sink in.  “I just hope it is.”  He kissed the top of Sherlock’s head.

Sherlock lay still for a bit and after a minute John could feel a finger double tapping against his own hip.  He realized Sherlock’s attention was focused completely on his heartbeat.  It was kind of strange feel his own heartbeat as an external rhythm, but he let Sherlock have a minute to think.

“It’s pretty insulting, isn’t it, for me to just want it over, isn’t it?”

John shrugged under Sherlock’s head.  “Let’s just say you won’t be the first person to take that attitude.”

Sherlock sighed, obviously not completely pleased with that answer.  “I told you I’d be bad at this.”

“And I told you,” John told him quickly, hugging him tightly when it felt like Sherlock might be entertaining the idea of moving away, “that that was okay.  Like everything else, sex gets better with practice.”

“On crap telly they always seem to know exactly what the other person wants.  And they always both want the same thing,” Sherlock observed.

“On crap telly they have to cut away before the awkward bits can happen.”

“In pornography – “

John cut him off, “In pornography they have a script and people standing around telling them exactly where to put their left legs, how loud to moan and when to come.  This is real life.  It’s awkward and messy and despite all that, it can still feel really, really good.”  Half-way through his speech, John started stroking Sherlock’s hair, settling him back against his chest.  “It’s okay.  We said going into this, that it might be less than perfect.  Personally, I prefer it that way.  It’s more honest.”

Sherlock rolled those words through his head for a minute before deciding that John really was okay with things – with him - being… imperfect.  “I’m making this more difficult than it needs to be, aren’t I?” he said, his voice much lighter than it had been, his head tipped up to see John’s face.

“Sherlock, I long ago learned that nothing would ever be easy with you.  I didn’t expect this to be any different.”  John tensed his abdominal muscles so that he could sit up enough to kiss Sherlock again.  When his muscles started to complain, he collapsed back against the mattress.  He began to wonder if he had a bit of fetish when his hand found it’s way into Sherlock’s hair again.  Sherlock seemed to like it as much as John did, so he didn’t worry about it.  John shifted just a little, feigning that he was just getting more comfortable, but really trying to move his leg just enough to feel whether or not Sherlock was going to need a few more minutes, or a little help, to get back into the game.

“Subtle,” Sherlock said quietly from where he’d started exploring John’s collarbone with his lips.

“You never answered my question,” John said, not denying that Sherlock had figured out what he’d been doing.  “When you’re alone, when you close your eyes, what do you think of?” he whispered right into Sherlock’s ear.

John was suddenly very glad Sherlock had been using just his lips to trace over his chest, because otherwise there was every chance Sherlock would have bitten him as he surged against John.  Clearly that got to him at least a little, but he still didn’t answer.

“I can’t imagine that you’d be thinking of anything that would shock me tonight, Sherlock.  So go ahead and tell me.  When you close your eyes do you see someone’s hands?  Lips?”  John continued to whisper as he carefully rolled them onto their sides and let his fingers drift over Sherlock’s hip, getting close to, but never touching Sherlock’s erection.  “What do you imagine?”

Sherlock was wiggling against him now, clearly trying not to grind into John’s leg, but obviously wanting something.

“Does that feel good?” John asked, his hand drifting around to Sherlock’s arse, pressing against one cheek to let Sherlock know it was okay to rub against him.  Suddenly he had an idea.  He leaned up and kissed Sherlock.  “I think I have an idea.  Push up just a little, I need something from the drawer.”

Looking apprehensive and excited at the same time, Sherlock pushed up onto his hands so that John could reach over and fumble through the drawer in the bedside table with one arm.  When he pulled out a bottle of hand lotion, Sherlock went just a little pale.  “Relax.  I think you’ll like this idea.”  He kissed Sherlock again before leaning back and uncapping the lotion.  He squeezed some into his hand and then slid his hand under the covers, careful to keep from sliming the sheets (though, he figured if this went as well as he hoped it would, the sheets would probably need changing anyway.)  “I’m going to touch you, Sherlock,” John warned and when he didn’t get any objection, he wrapped his hand gently around Sherlock’s cock, using the now-warm lotion to coat him from root to tip.

Sherlock’s breath stuttered as John carefully handled him, not being timid or aggressive, almost clinical in his touch.

“Now, push back up on your arms,” John told him and when Sherlock complied he shifted his own position a little one way and then pushed Sherlock down towards the foot of the bed just a bit.  He spread his legs enough for Sherlock’s cock to drop between them and then closed them again.

Sherlock dropped to his elbows, his eyes going wide.  John could tell that while Sherlock hadn’t thought of this, he clearly liked the idea.  He rubbed the rest of the lotion in his hand into Sherlock’s back.  “You’re in control,” he whispered.

Sherlock let his hips drop all the way down, sighing at the sensation of John’s skin against his.  He looked up at John’s face, questioning.  John nodded and Sherlock closed his eyes as he lifted his hips again, now obviously trying to get as much contact between his cock and John’s thighs.  After a couple strokes, Sherlock shifted position.  The new angle made his abdomen drag against John’s cock as he went.

“Fuck, you’re brilliant,” John moaned as Sherlock slid a hand under the small of John’s back, pulling John’s cock against him as he continued to move.  It got a little awkward, a little hard to sustain as Sherlock’s thrusting grew faster and shallower, so John slid a hand between them, working himself as Sherlock changed his angle again, clearly trying to find the best angle and whatever was eluding him and keeping him from tipping over the edge.  John squeezed his legs around Sherlock even tighter, crossing his ankles to keep as much pressure as he could.

John continued to work his own cock, studying Sherlock’s face as they both fumbled through a couple awkward moments and repositions.  When Sherlock’s head dropped down to John’s chest and his breathing came out in little pants that could only mean that he was close, John felt himself starting to tip over that incredible edge himself.  With a groan, he smashed his head into the pillow, eyes squeezed shut, and came over his own hand and Sherlock’s belly.

Apparently the tension from his own orgasm gave Sherlock that last little shove he needed because just as John was able to open his eyes again, he felt Sherlock become incredibly tense under his hand, followed by a warm pulsing against his thighs.

True to exactly what John expected from Sherlock, he collapsed completely against John when he was spent.

John ‘oofed’ and put a hand up to gently push on Sherlock’s shoulder.  “For someone who’s all bones, you’re awfully heavy, Sherlock.  Shift.  Now.”

Sherlock looked up, stricken, the lassitude from his orgasm disappearing in an instant.

John gently tapped Sherlock’s cheek with his palm.  “Not far, Sherlock, just enough that the elbow you somehow managed to wedge between us isn’t trying to push my sternum into the sheets.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Sherlock said, suddenly realizing that he had somehow tangled an arm between them in his effort to get his arms around John.

They rearranged themselves, both making faces as they realized how sticky both they and the sheets were.  Then they cracked up laughing.  It reminded John of asking Sherlock if he had on any pants at Buckingham Palace.  It might have been completely inappropriate, but the longer John knew Sherlock the less he cared much about ‘appropriate.’  And if they couldn’t laugh at a somewhat awkward first sexual encounter, they were going to have a tough time negotiating this new level of their relationship.

John fell back against the bed, Sherlock pressed against his side.  He reached up, realized that he still had a bit of lotion on his hand and wiped it on the top sheet.  Once his hand was clean he ran his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.  “You okay?” he asked quietly, studying Sherlock’s face for any sign of distress.

“I was hardly the one in a position to get injured –“

“We both know I don’t mean physically, Sherlock.  Are _you_ okay?”

“I’m sticky,” Sherlock answered, even though it wasn’t really the kind of answer John was looking for.  John supposed Sherlock needed a few minutes to regroup before he’d be able to give a very honest answer to that question. 

John let him off the hook.  “Me too.  Tell you what; you go clean up while I strip the bed.  You can reset it with clean sheets for us while I clean up.”

Sherlock blinked, looking a little lost for a minute.  “Sherlock?” John asked.

“Yes, of course,” he said, but John had the impression that something wasn’t sitting right with him.

“You’re okay?” John pressed.

“I’m sticky,” Sherlock repeated before rather suddenly pulling himself out of bed and padding across the hall to the bathroom.

John figured he’d just need a minute.  John wanted to lay around and let the little bit of tranquility left over from his orgasm drift through him.  But he was also starting to itch in a few places, so it was probably best to just strip the bed, clean up and then collapse back into bed with Sherlock.

He’d just pulled the covers back and was separating the sheet from the blankets when Sherlock came out of the bathroom and grabbed his dressing gown from the chair.  John quickly tossed his pillow on the desk and removed the fitted sheet.  “There’s a clean set of sheets on the closet shelf,” John told Sherlock as he passed him on the way to the door.  “Oh, and I think a spare pillow or two ended up in there as well.  You sleep with two, yeah?”

“Hm? Oh, yes,” Sherlock answered distractedly.

John knew something was wrong but given that odds were pretty good that this would be a long conversation, John decided getting cleaned up first was the wiser course of action.

Given everything, John decided the quickest way to clean up was to just jump in the shower.  It took him less than five minutes to scrub down and wash his hair so he wouldn’t have to deal with it all in the morning.  Unless he was lucky and had the same reason to need to clean up before breakfast.  But something in Sherlock’s demeanor as John had passed him was leading him to believe that wouldn’t be the case.

When he came back out, he noticed that Sherlock had put the green sheets on, but hadn’t grabbed the extra pillows.  He may not be Sherlock Holmes, but he could deduce what that meant.  Sherlock had no less than four pillows on his bed.  John frequently walked by Sherlock’s room in the morning before Sherlock awoke and found that he had two under his head, he was clutching another to his chest and had one more between his knees.  That John’s single pillow was the only one on the bed told John a lot.  Sherlock had pulled his dressing gown tight and for the first time in John’s memory, had tied the sash.  John had a fair idea what that meant too.

John went to the dresser and grabbed a pair of pyjama pants and a t-shirt.  He dressed quickly and then sat on the bed next to Sherlock.  “How are you?” he asked again.

Sherlock fidgeted as if he couldn’t stand being in the room with John anymore.

“Sherlock, if you’re not okay, it would be best if you tell me now.”  John had promised both Sherlock and himself that if this experiment went badly he wouldn’t take it personally.  Somehow it had been easier to promise that before Sherlock had kissed his damn scar.

“It – it’s not … that,” Sherlock said, waving his hand at the bed.

“Really?” John asked, not sure what the hell else it could be.

Sherlock turned and looked at him.  “Were you expecting that I’d sleep up here with you?”  His voice was incredibly neutral, not giving John any indication what answer Sherlock wanted to hear.

John tried to be neutral in his reply.  “I don’t know about ‘expecting’.  Hoping, maybe.”  When Sherlock didn’t reply John hastily added, “But it’s okay if you don’t want to.”

Sherlock sighed and dropped his head into his hands.  “You’re going to sleep up here,” he said through his fingers.  John wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“Sherlock, I really have no clue what you’re getting at.  If you want to sleep downstairs, if you aren’t ready for… for that level of intimacy yet, that’s fine.”

“It’s not the intimacy – it’s not – I don’t-“ Sherlock looked dangerously close to scratching his own face he was clenching his fingers into his skin so hard.

“Sherlock, whatever it is that’s bothering you, please, just say it.  Just say it and we can deal with it.  I promise.”  John gently tugged on Sherlock’s wrist, hoping Sherlock would look at him.

“I will if I have to, but I prefer not to sleep in a bed other than my own if it can be avoided.”

Sherlock said the words so fast, John had to replay them a half-dozen times in his head before he could understand them.  His face lit up when I realized where Sherlock was going with this.  John gently gripped Sherlock’s chin and turned him towards him.  “Sherlock, are you saying you’d like me to come downstairs and sleep with you down there?”

Sherlock flushed and shrugged but didn’t contradict John.

“You’re completely daft, you know?  That’s possibly one of the least insane requests you’ve made of me in the year I’ve known you.  Come on.”  John stood up and offered Sherlock his hand.

Sherlock smiled shyly and accepted it and John led them both down to Sherlock’s room.  Sherlock grabbed pyjamas and disappeared into the en suite bathroom for a minute.  When he came out, he hung his dressing gown on the back of the door and began organizing the bed he almost never managed to make in the morning.  As they rearranged the pillows to accommodate two people and the fact that Sherlock wouldn’t need all the extra pillows to snuggle, John added, “I spent a large part of my life in the military.  I slept wherever the hell they told me to.  I learned not to get too attached to a place.  I’m pleased if it’s horizontal and has a blanket.  So this is no trouble.”  He waited for Sherlock to crawl into the blankets they’d straightened out.  He didn’t put it past Sherlock to need to be on one side or the other.

Once Sherlock had settled on the side nearest the door, John hit the lightswitch and then went around and climbed under the covers on the far side of the bed.  He held up his arm.  “Come here.”

Sherlock shifted closer to the middle and John met him half way.  It took a second to figure out what to do with all the arms and legs, but eventually they got themselves curled up together, Sherlock’s leg thrown over both of John’s, his back curled just enough that he could get his head tucked under John’s chin.

John resumed his rapidly-developing habit of running his fingers through Sherlock’s hair whenever he could.  Sherlock practically purred as he snuggled in closer and made himself comfortable.  “We’re going to make all the usual mistakes couples make when they’re working out a new relationship, but it’ll be okay,” John told him, lightly kissing Sherlock’s forehead.

“I wouldn’t know what constitutes ‘usual’ in this case,” Sherlock muttered.

“I know.  But I do.  And I can tell you that the worst thing you can do is _not_ talk about something that you want or don’t want or… whatever.  Like this.  Coming down here is no big deal to me at all.  I was scared that you had written this whole thing off as a bad idea.  We just need to talk through things.”

Sherlock grimaced into John’s t-shirt.  “I’ll… try.”

John took that to mean that when John held his violin or his skull hostage and made him talk, he’d reluctantly participate.  But that was okay.  That was normal for them.  And John knew that with Sherlock Holmes he’d need every little bit of ‘normal’ he could find.


End file.
